Of course, that day right in her first class, the professor announced that what they’d be covering over the next couple of lessons would be guaranteed to be part of the exam. Luckily for Eva, one of her classmates was still taking notes in dead tree format, and willing to lend her some sheets of paper and a pencil.

The day went largely as usual, except that the Kitsune regularly checked her phone to see if Kurt had sent her any messages about his progress in contacting his prof for help. Though the only one she did receive was to let her know he hadn’t managed to talk to him during his office hours, so the werewolf would most likely have to wait until the end of classes that night.

When her classes were finally over for the day late in the afternoon, Eva was about to head back to Kurt’s place when her phone rang.

“Hi Touya, what's up?” she asked, having seen the Tanuki’s name on the caller id.

“Hey Eva, say are you done with classes yet? Ms. Uangi is back with more questions. And you know how bad I am with explaining things.”

“Can’t Komaki or Yukiko take care of that then?”

“Well no. Komaki took that crazy Tengu out for drinks so he doesn’t end up destroying our home. And Yukiko headed off for another of her lessons a few moments ago.”

“Ugh, fine. I’ll be there soon, just got out of my last class for today.” Eva replied before hanging up.

Once she arrived, Eva found Ms. Unagi waiting for her in the tatami room.

“Good evening Eva, thank you again for saving me this morning.” Hanako greeted the German as she stepped into the room. “I hope it’s not too much of a bother that I have more questions already.”

“Not too much, no.” Eva said as she kneeled down opposite of the older woman, before grumbling under her breath. “Though I’d like to not be stuck dealing with them.”

“Ah good, I’ll get right to them then.” Hanako said before she started to wring her hands as she slowly formed her first question. “You see I’d like to, if it’s really not too much to ask, speak to Mumei herself.”

Hanako took a short moment to take a deep breath, but before Eva could interject anything, she continued. “It’s not about demanding proof. If the Bird man nearly killing us wasn’t enough, the way that fox took me to work certainly was. It’s just. I used to escort my blind grandma to this shrine for her morning prayer every morning from the time I started school until she passed away.”

When I asked her one day why she kept coming here day after day without pause, she told me that the only thing she ever saw was Mumei asking her to follow a fox to safety out of a burning building in her youth.” Before continuing, she took another deep breath. If she noticed Eva’s eyes getting a bit wet, she didn’t show any sign of noticing.

“Now I want to ask her if she really did save my grandmother back then. I’m not going to stop coming and praying to her no matter the answer, but I’d just like to know for sure.”

It took some moments to take in this short tale, and a few more for Eva to deliberate how to respond. After all, she was definitely not ready to reveal herself as the new Kami. Not to mention she had no idea how one would go about being appropriately divine for such a conversation.

“I am not sure, but I believe she would not mind too much. I'll have to check with Komaki how we would go about setting it all up though, so I can’t make you any promises right now.”

Hanako let out a sigh as she heard that. “Thank you. So what that fox did this morning to become invisible and teleport us to my company’s offices. That was real magic wasn’t it?”

“Yes it was.” Eva replied, glad that at least one of the human’s questions was easy to answer.

“Do you think a normal human can learn to do it as well?” the office lady inquired while leaning slightly forward, her eyes wide and filled with hope.

“Well I’ve heard about humans that managed to do actual magic.” Eva began to explain. “But I don’t have any idea how a mortal would get started with it.” Seeing the corners of Hanako’s mouth drop, the Kitsune quickly continued. “I’ll ask around though, maybe a fox has some ideas how to go about it.”

“I-I see, thanks.” Hanako replied with a bow. “I think then I only have one other thing to bring up with you. At least until you got some more answers for me.”

“Which would be?”

“Well I’ll probably be coming by more often than normal for the next while, and I thought it would be good to have a plausible excuse. So how would you feel about helping us out with our little exhibition from the fire fighters next month? It’s nothing too big, mind, simply an event to raise awareness about common ways house fires get started, spreading some basic first aid knowledge and raising some donations.”

“Sure. I could help with cp-, no actually I’d have to look up japanese CPR standards for that. I don’t have any supplies for RUD[1], but I could demonstrate various ways to bandage a wound.” Eva offered quickly. “That’s always a big hit with kids back home even without faked wounds underneath. Or I could -” At that point, the Kitsune was interrupted by her phone ringing. Seeing it was from Kurt, she quickly apologized to Hanako before taking the call.

“Hi Kurt, how did it go?”